


Displacements

by handschuhmaus



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Ignores everything after At World's End, Multi, might not be completely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: Elizabeth comes in his dreams, and lets her husband deliver the proposition.Swallowing his pride and letting her love color his outlook anew isn't so hard, after all.
Relationships: James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner
Kudos: 19
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Displacements

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt for this was ["The Song of the Sea"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uen59x1NBRs) (sung by Nolwenn Leroy)

Norrington dreamed.

And in his dreams, Elizabeth Swann said things to him of which he had never thought he'd ever dream of, so inconceivable were they. Words of freedom and the majesty of being surrounded in blue, of the nobility evoked in men ( _and_ women, James) in trying to make it through the unyielding waves. But the most shockingly unexpected was not that. It was Elizabeth's accounts of events _in_ her marriage bed, and things (what things!) she wished would happen there.

When he opened his eyes (which he did not expect to do, but he supposed, inasmuch as one dead could suppose--or expect--that if he'd bothered to think about it, the dreaming was--well, the fact of the dreaming at all, not just its nature--equally unexpected), it was the _Dutchman_ he saw again. And Turner.

But Elizabeth's Will (who, he now knew, quite against his will, had freckles on the inside of his thigh that nearly matched the constellation Andromeda, the girl in the legend sacrificed to the sea) appraised him, strangely.

Without explanation, he was left to serve on the ship again---although this time he was tasked only with matching items (and occasionally dead people--other dead people?) to a description on a manifest. In many cases, a simple visual comparison of the text could have sufficed, but it seemed they had grudgingly acknowledged in recruiting him that literacy had its advantages.

Will Turner gave him a start when he walked up behind him with a strange determined look.

"Come with me to the cabin," he said--and that it was him made it a command. They had always been rivals, whether romantically, or legally and--no, fine, there _was_ one instance, barely worth acknowledging, where he recognized Turner as a skilled tradesman. But so many years ago it barely counted.

"You--you weren't supposed to die then," Turner blurted, and for want of a reply that would actually be deemed appropriate (or any, really--what _does_ one say to that?!), James found himself staring around their surroundings and grudgingly acknowledging, finally, that the _Dutchman_ was actually reasonably well kept this time around. Not _quite_ Navy standard, but probably only a few Navy officers would refuse it. When his eyes returned to Turner, he realized the man was ...older than when they'd last met.

"Quite frankly, I find myself in need of a favor only you may provide," and Turner strode across towards him, took James' hands in his, and leaned toward him until their noses collided. The captain stepped back and seemed to regroup; Norrington was only too aware that his face plainly said he was baffled and affronted, but he couldn't quite bring himself to amend his expression.

"I--Elizabeth told me, what had always charmed you, I mean, but I didn't... account for the difference in heights."

And once Turner--Will said it, Norrington could see it, reexamining the last few minutes.

"How is she?" He knew, again, that his expression, pained this time, offended, but wouldn't change it.

"Well--fine, but the only reason I know that is she's been sailing with us this past year."

"Elizabeth on the Dutchman?" An alarming thought.

" _With_. But not on. And--we're finally due a child, she thinks. Which--"

Norrington thinks he knows, with dreadful certainty, what Turner is about to ask of him.

"I know it is no honor, and you may recoil at--taking a pirate's leavings. But she said--" Turner trailed off, and commented, "You know, I'm better at this with most people.--My night on land comes, well, as soon as we make landfall. And Mrs.--Elizabeth is like to say it's Mayday. She wants you--if we ever come across you, and she--had been talking to Calypso--thought it would be soon--to stay with us. For that night, and her last several months at sea with me."

Norrington gulped. Many things crowded into this head--all the "appropriate" responses such as would suffice for a _commodore_ invited to--to cuckold a pirate, but also, with an increasing faith in the contents, all the things dream Elizabeth (he almost mentally corrected this to "Mrs. Turner", then decided that was inappropriate under the circumstances) had been telling him.

"I am not sure how it will work--we have been adversaries--" the door interrupted him.

Elizabeth Swann (no, Turner): older, and the lovelier for it, sunkissed, in breeches under a petticoat that is tucked into the waist ties of a--probably blacksmith's apron, and it was... covered in _something_ , plus blood, something that reeked with an astonishing fragrance. 

"You know, James, I'm glad I learned embroidery as a child. Used it to stitch up a child." 

"It was... injured?" He did not know what to say, and was somehow glad of the bottle she hands him, of--cider, a thing he hadn't tasted for years, before his _death_.

"Caught her sleeve on a knife when she wandered into the galley. Rescued her and her mother yesterday." Perhaps--he didn't know if it was her intention--this was an explanation for her staying away until now.

"How are you getting on with Will?" she looked nervous, and well--it was one thing that Miss Swann, in certain regards, got on with all sectors of society, another to expect it of a commodore ,and yet... he knew about _Will's_ freckles, and the ghost of the touch of the man's hands was warm on his skin. He also knew what goes on between men on long voyages, though had never indulged in it, and it seemed obvious now, considering Tortuga, that even if the Bible didn't something like sanction it, as with Jacob and Leah and Rachel, or David's many wives, men can share a woman, if not usually _in love_. 

"He's--fine, the captain took his hand again, in a warm grasp, and James reached his other hand to Elizabeth. This... could be a good beginning.

"You know, pirates--we're share and share alike," and then Elizabeth was kissing him, and kissing Turner, and if he awkwardly kissed the blacksmith-turned-pirate, no one commented.

* * *

And the creed of pirates doesn't fix it all, but Elizabeth takes him on board her ship, untarnished with memories, peopled by crew who don't know him as an enemy, or an agent of the East India Company. "I've learned a lot of being captain. But I need a first mate," she says, and he thinks here, between the broad turquoise sea and the unending arc of the bluest sky he's ever seen, dotted only with a handful of cotton boll clouds, that she could easily enrapture him, with her love for the same sea he once loved. He had let that, and his own adoration of Elizabeth, get buried beneath other concerns. 

"You know, I also always liked Robin Hood, James," she says, and wraps his arms around her, fitting her head and soap scented hair right beneath his nose. The details of sailing _with_ Turner are suggested by his bidding them, both, a temporary goodbye now, and their second kiss is less awkward, and invites a further story. 

That lingering opening doesn't change his being left relatively alone with Elizabeth and those beguiling fantasies at sea. If she still does not think the sea cruel, then James would be worse than it to dissuade her, and he must also be thankful for his saving. It's a brand new brilliant life he's been handed, and he will bear quite a lot to explore it. Perhaps it ought to be a surprise, but isn't, that being only second-in-command to Elizabeth, and sharing her with Will Turner don't seem to really be among his burdens.


End file.
